#sonya hartnett

[quotelr]

How does one craft happiness out of something as important, as complicated, as unrepeatable and as easily damaged as life?

Sonya Hartnett, The Ghost's Child

[litandlifequotes]

None of the best things - the voice and the laugh, the tilt of the head, the things seen and felt and spoken - are allowed to stay behind.

The Ghost's Child by Sonya Hartnett

[skribblepup]

The birds told him that the men were gone, but Kian didn’t open his eyes. He heard the breeze drop and drape calm over the paddock, the whining and whispering stilled. There came a tiny tremor that must have been an insect, for it cruised near and reeled away. He was not cold, but he curled his body tighter. It occurred to Kian that it was tiring to breathe. The melody of the earth was a hymn in his feet, and he realised, with startled joy, that everything around him was home.

FOREST BY SONYA HARTNETT

[verifiablebot]

here are all of my favourite books that i own. just in case anyone wanted recs :)

[thereadingchallengechallenge]

🦘 Booklr Reads Australian - Authors on My Shelves 🐨

so, I’ve been trying to think of a way to recommend a lot of Australian authors really quickly for Booklr Reads Australian. what I came up with was just to give y’all a giant list of all the authors I have at home! 

most of them are YA and/or fantasy authors, and I’ve marked my favourites with an asterisk (*) but if you have any questions, feel free to shoot me an ask 😊

1. Sarah Ayoub 2. Eugen Bacon 3. Shirley Barber * 4. AJ Betts 5. Danielle Binks * 6. Cally Black 7. Steph Bowe * 8. Alice Boyle 9. JC Burke 10. Meg Caddy * 11. Frances Chapman 12. Wai Chim * 13. Claire Christian 14. Lyndall Clipstone 15. Claire G Coleman 16. Katherine Collette 17. Harry Cook 18. Cath Crowley 19. Robyn Dennison 20. Cale Dietrich 21. Lauren Draper 22. CG Drews * 23. Michael Earp 24. Kate Emery 25. Sarah Epstein 26. Alison Evans * 27. Fleur Ferris 28. Carly Findlay 29. Helena Fox 30. Lisa Fuller 31. Emily Gale 32. Meg Gatland-Veness 33. Sophie Gonzales 34. Erin Gough * 35. Leanne Hall * 36. Pip Harry 37. Sonya Hartnett 38. Adam Hills 39. Simmone Howell 40. Megan Jacobson 41. Amie Kaufman 42. Melissa Keil 43. Nina Kenwood 44. Sharon Kernot 45. Kay Kerr * 46. Will Kostakis 47. Jay Kristoff 48. Ambelin Kwaymullina 49. Benjamin Law 50. Rebecca Lim 51. Gary Lonesborough * 52. Kathleen Loughnan 53. Miranda Luby 54. Tobias Madden 55. Melina Marchetta 56. Ellie Marney * 57. Freya Marske 58. Jodi McAlister * 59. Margot McGovern * 60. Nikki McWatters 61. Anna Morgan 62. Jaclyn Moriarty 63. Liane Moriarty 64. Garth Nix 65. Lynette Noni 66. Carly Nugent 67. Poppy Nwosu 68. Kate O’Donnell 69. Shivaun Plozza 70. Michael Pryor 71. Alice Pung 72. Emily Rodda * 73. Autumn Royal 74. Omar Sakr 75. Holden Sheppard 76. AG Slatter 77. Jo Spurrier 78. Krystal Sutherland * 79. Jared Thomas 80. Hayli Thompson 81. Gabrielle Tozer 82. Christos Tsiolkas 83. Alicia Tuckerman 84. Ellen van Neerven 85. Marlee Jane Ward 86. Vikki Wakefield 87. Lisa Walker 88. Jessica Watson * 89. Allayne L Webster 90. Anna Whateley * 91. Samantha Wheeler 92. Jen Wilde * 93. Rhiannon Wilde 94. Lili WIlkinson 95. Gabrielle Williams 96. Rhiannon Williams 97. Fiona Wood 98. Leanne Yong 99. Suzy Zail 100. Nevo Zisin 101. Markus Zusak

[curlykytta]

“A small town is nothing but eyes and gaping maw; it pecks at its own like a flock of vicious birds.”  - Sonya Hartnett

Gannibal, ep 4

[bensbooks]

Books 79-90 of 2024

These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

In Memoriam by Alice Winn

The Hostile Hospital by Lemony Snicket

The Conviction of Cora Burns by Carolyn Kirby

The Weight of Our Sky by Hanna Alkaf

Sleeping Dogs by Sonya Hartnett

The New Life by Tom Crewe

Yesterday's Dead by Pat Bourke

The Minus-One Club by Kekla Magoon

Abnormal Statistics by Max Booth III

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

[mousemannation]

For the bookish asks: 🤎📙❤️

🤎Are you a one-book-at-a-time reader, or do you read multiple books simultaneously?

i read so fucking slowly bc of the state of my brain (i get pretty bad brain fog semi-regularly) so generally i'm not picking up more than one book at a time, but occasionally i'll pick up a super short book and read that on a whim sdbfnks i especially like vintage tween books bc they tend to be simpler to read which is good if my brain isn't working. last year i had an 8 hour train ride that i used to read one such book!

📙What’s your favorite genre to read, and do you have any recommendations within that genre?

bc i read so slowly and thus am not making it through many books i am very bad at recommendations. i tend to like introspective/character-driven stories, and in the last year have gotten into splatterpunk/extreme horror, although obviously that is NAWT for everyone. my rec will be for the former lol and it's a book i read when i was in primary school called the silver donkey by sonya hartnett!

❤️Who is your all-time favorite author, and what makes their writing so special to you?

hmm again i just don't read enough to really have a favourite, and i generally buy books secondhand, i don't really follow authors. when i was younger it was ursula dubosarsky! i read a few of her fiction books and loved them but my absolute favourites were her books about linguistics called the word spy!!!!

[darkpoetrynprose]

“Time passes slowly when you’re young, and quickens as you get old. Summer lasted forever when I was seven, but now it only visits.”

– Sonya Hartnett, Thursday's Child

[jackie-the-obscure]

Thank you @argyleheir! ☺️

Current time: 3:51 PM

Current mood: a bit of a headache 🤕

Current activity: looking at my to-do list

Currently thinking about: my trip to Ireland in 2 weeks. First time going overseas!

Current favorite song:

Currently reading: Princes by Sonya Hartnett

Currently watching: just finished The Bear and may start watching Normal People (three years later 😅)

Current favorite character: it’s between Sydney and Luca on The Bear.

Current WIP: something with The Charioteer I’m hoping to figure out/complete before I go on vacation.🤞

One more tag game!

Tagged by @complicitsacrilege - thanks!

Current time: 3:55 PM

Current mood: relaxed

Current activity: making pizza dough

Currently thinking about: vacation 😍 will have limited internet next week, which I enjoy

Current favorite song: many; here’s a pretty one

Currently reading: have so been enjoying the recent flurry of Charioteer love that I’ve resolved to do a full reread. This book is dear to my heart - and while it’s one I’ve often reread certain scenes, I think I’ve only given it the cover-to-cover treatment three times. The last was in 2021 (‘53 edition)… I feel I’m in need of a refresher to fully appreciate and participate in the discourse (and write fic)

Currently watching: seeking enthusiastic recs 👀

Current favorite character: Jonathan Harker

Current WIPs: mostly Dracula (90s AU, drabble set), still hoping to finish my Reddie longfic for the WIP Big Bang

Tagging a few I didn’t catch on the last game @grimgrinningghosts456, @ellewidogast, @jackie-the-obscure, @livesonthebside and anyone else who wants to play 🖤

[beforevenice]

She doesn't understand that doors, walls, fences, ceilings - they're helpless to keep out what determinedly desires to get in.

// Sonya Hartnett, Surrender

[something-that-needs-nothing]

“He was listening, thinking, remembering: she realised he was pining. She wanted to run outside and strike him, because he was hurting her. It wasn’t right-- he shouldn’t want to hurt her, he wasn’t allowed to hurt cause her pain, not when he knew that she loved him, not when she strove so hard to be loved. She said, ‘You have a life with me now, you’re happy,’ in case he didn’t know. 

And then one morning, one terrible day, she found him walking by the water without his boot and shirt, as unkempt as any creature who’d never been inside a house. He looked as wild as he had on the day she’d first met him-- Maddy thought she saw a flare of lightning flicker in his wake. Worse than this, though, was the troop of gulls that trotted alongside him. The birds stepped smartly, like busy little barristers, tense chatter rising between them. The flock of birds and the unclothed, unshackled man strode down the beach, full of purpose and determination. There was clearly something important that they needed to do. 

Maddy stepped back among the conifers before she was seen, dizzy with exile. There were things in Feather’s life that he shared, but not with her.” 

-- Sonya Hartnett, The Ghost’s Child 

[verifiablebot]

hello hello, I saw your tags in that post about an overabundance of fantasy writers/readers and I wanted to reach out because I almost exclusively read contemporary literature and I have been DYING to find a tumblr community who read the kinds of books I do :)

what are some contemporary lit books you've enjoyed lately? what authors do you usually read?

god i knew there were other people out here who read what i do lmao.

the last book i read was actually 'horse' by geraldine brooks and i loveeedd it. it's contemporary but also sort of historical semi-fiction (takes place in two timelines) and it's about a famous racehorse but also about the Black men who raised and trained him and other historical horses and how race is intersected so deeply with racing history and the history of the american horse in general. however i will say that the modern-day sections were the weakest. (and i didn't like the romantic arc...did not need it and felt weird in the context the book sets up between them at first)

looking through my storygraph (i'm @/cataouatche if you wanna be friends) i've also got 'it helps with the blues' by bryan cebulski, 'icarus' by k. ancrum, 'the deadwood beetle' by mylene dressier, 'cottonmouths' by kelly j. ford, 'stripes of the sidestep wolf' by sonya harnett (one of my favourite authors of all time, btw, PLEASE look up her stuff it's so good), and 'the butcher boy' by patrick mccabe are some that i've read recently that i really enjoyed. some of my favourite books i haven't read recently but sit nicely on my shelf are 'these violent delights' by micah nemerever (one of the big inspirations for the novel i wrote,) 'the wicker king' by k. ancrum, and 'the devil latch', 'princes' and 'surrender' by sonya hartnett. like i said, one of my favourite authors of all time :p

very clearly i have a penchant for 'toxic relationship that is usually queer in some way' books, but in general i just love reading stories about people in the real (or mostly real) world that just! have a problem! and deal with it! usually poorly! those are stories i can understand and relate to lol

i always love reccs too! esp if it's in the queer fucked up relationship sphere. i'm still looking for a sapphic that is as messed up as i want it to be haha.

[innervoiceartblog]

An Empty Heart... is the heaviest weight to hold

"Love can be horrible for those who aren't in it. Sometimes it's even horrible for those who are. Love isn't always a good thing, or even a happy thing. Sometimes it's the very worst thing that can happen. But love is like moonlight or thunder, or rain on a tin roof in the middle of the night; it is one of the things in life that is truly worth knowing...The world changes when something in it is loved. Words become feeble. Colours grow. Every moment vibrates with possible importance. And the heart that loves wonders how it lived, in the past, without loving - and how it will live now, now that it loves..."

~ The Ghost's Child - Sonya Hartnett 

  Artwork: “An Empty Heart” ~ Digital Collage by Raine © Inner Voice Art™ https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/InnerVoiceArt

[liquidlightandrunningtrees]

She was the four seasons put together inside a person. It was hard to know what to say to somebody like that.

Sonya Hartnett, The Ghost’s Child

[thecloserkin]

book review: Sleeping Dogs by Sonya Hartnett (1995)

Genre: YA

Is it the main pairing: Yes

Is it canon: Yes

Is it explicit: No

Is it endgame: Nope

Is it shippable: Not particularly but there are interesting facets to their relationship

Bottom line: Borrow it from the library but don’t pay cash money for it

The Willow family lives on a farm in the ass-end of nowhere and it ain’t no picturesque farm either: “Farms are places for working, not preening.” They work from sunup till sundown and they none of them have friends but they do have a pack of dogs. The day Michelle Willow turns twenty-three, her brother Jordan slips into her bed at the crack of dawn:

She knows that Jordan is here stealing time, has planned and plotted this moment of quiet between them, and she curls her hand around his, lets his hair tickle her face without becoming cross for it. He lies still for a minute or more, and then sits up on an elbow so he can kiss her and look at her face and touch her closed eyes. He whispers, “Happy birthday, Michelle.”

This is such a tender stolen moment between them. If only the whole novel went on in this vein! All too soon Jordan has to leave to help their older brother Edward slaughter a sheep. Edward more or less runs the farm; as far as I can tell the only thing their father is good for is yelling at the lot of them for being a pack of lazy layabouts. The only one he abuses physically is Jordan, but all five children come in for their share of emotional abuse. Their mother has long since noped right out of there and now all she does is sit in her chair like a vegetable. And the entire town gives the family a wide berth:

In the shop the chemist is watchful. He does not like the Willow children and thinks them dangerous, delinquent. He asks them what they want and Michelle says, “I want to know why chemists are always old.” She sprays perfume and samplers up and down her arm and in her brother’s face. Jordan retreats outside and leans against the window to wait. He watches the people who pass but drops his gaze if they look back at him.

There is a dynamic here that may strike you as familiar, the nerdy or socially inept brother versus the glamorous sister with a temper to reckon with, a la Justin and Alex Russo from Wizards of Waverly Place. In this incarnation it’s a very unhealthy dynamic — everything about the Willows is unhealthy actually. Into this closed loop arrives an outsider, a would-be painter who overestimates both his native-born artistic talent and his appeal to women. He immediately develops an infatuation for Michelle and can’t understand why she doesn’t reciprocate his interest. Inexplicably one of their younger siblings, Oliver, takes to following this man around like a puppy. Or maybe not so inexplicably:

Although Oliver loves his siblings dearly, he is not yet old enough to consider them friends. He is no loner, and would call himself lonely.

In his eagerness to please, Oliver winds up revealing far too much to the not-particularly-astute painter, such as the fact that Jordan draws for a hobby. The walls of Jordan’s room are papered with drawings, and they are — untutored as he is — much better than anything the painter has ever produced. This hurts the painter’s pride almost as much as Michelle’s rejection does. Oliver makes another very telling observation, which is:

“What you were saying the other day - I’ve been thinking about it - “

”What was I saying?”

”You know, the stuff about kids in a family having favorites … Edward is Speck’s favorite. And Michelle is Jordan’s favorite. Michelle is Dad’s favorite, too. Everyone knows that. He thinks she’s wonderful. He lets her do anything she likes. He never yells at her.”

I love this, I love it when you have a big family and everyone has their own favorite and they all know it but refrain from discussing it. The Starks, for instance: Bran is Cat’s favorite and Jon is Arya’s, that much is canonical but I could sit here all day speculating about the other dynamics. Eventually Oliver lets slip something he really shouldn’t have and that’s when the shit hits the fan: SPOILERS AHEAD

”Michelle doesn’t like other boys. She only likes Jordan. She’ll tell you to go away, because she’s only ever liked Jordan.”

Even someone as thick as the painter cannot possibly miss the implications of that. A sibling conference is hastily convened in which they all close ranks in order to confront the threat of this outsider having such blackmail material in his possession, and the instant sibling solidarity warms my heart. They resolve on a plan of action to drive him out of town. The plan results in the painter peeing his pants as he’s savaged by the Willows’ hunting dogs, so to the extent it chastened and embarrassed him it worked; but on his way out he leaves an unsigned note for their father tipping him off about Michelle and Jordan’s relationship.

”Daddy!” she pleads, “there’s nothing - “

”Liar!” he spits. “Don’t you lie to me! Someone says they’ve seen you, out there in the bush, like animals! Animals, Michelle!”

I do think we are supposed to read possessiveness and jealousy in the way he’s thrashing Michelle here. She is, after all, his favorite. He’s incensed that she prefers Jordan (his least favorite child) as much as by the revelation of their “sin.” Eventually Michelle breaks down:

”Don’t throw me out, Daddy, don’t make me leave. It was Jordan, he made me do everything, he made me, it wasn’t my fault, don’t hurt me.”

Having got what he wanted, he leaves Michelle weeping on the floor, picks up his rifle, goes into the garden and blows the head off of Jordan’s dog before shooting Jordan next. You could interpret it as he wanted to get rid of the dog so it wouldn’t attempt to protect its owner, but to me it looks like he wanted Jordan to suffer by watching the dog die first. And if you didn’t see that ending coming a mile off you are probably new to reading stories about incest.

This novel falls squarely in the category of “books where the incest is a byproduct of abuse/neglect,” of which there are already too many. And unlike, say, Flowers in the Attic, where there is also abuse & neglect galore, it doesn’t frame the central incestuous relationship as a romance. This is primarily a story about an abusive family, and only secondarily about Michelle and Jordan’s bond, which anyway strikes me as uncomfortably uneven. I mean he worships the ground she walks on while she straight-up admits that she’ll probably date other men at some point. I do want to emphasize that just because their father favors Michelle doesn’t mean she’s not a victim too — everybody in an abusive family is a victim simply by virtue of witnessing the abuse and being forced to modify their own behavior accordingly to minimize the chances of abuse. It still kills me that when their father hurts Jordan it is always his left hand, his drawing hand. I don’t want to leave you all on a depressing note, however, so here are some of the shippiest passages:

It is not something they often talk of: they know what they do is said to be wrong and yet certainly it appears to hurt no one. It causes no trouble and no great punishment comes down from the sky to blight them. Griffin hitting Jordan provides the penalty they don’t want but know they probably deserve despite everything they endure, the monotony, the seclusion, the occasional misery of the farm. Denied the chance to do so as children, they are now both incapable of making outside friends: their closeness brings them solace and companionship and seems only just.

Omg they think they deserve to get hit. Because their love is ~wrong. Goddamn it hurts so good.

She leans her weight on his chest and he smells her: she always smells nice to him, like something brand new. He sighs but there is nothing wrong. No other body could be as harmonious to him as Michelle’s, no one would ever fold around him so comfortably, none could wrap him so perfectly, for Shelly and he are made alike.